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Hourieh Peramaa

Toprak, a mansion on London's exclusive Bishops Avenue in Hampstead, was snapped up for £50m in January by Peramaa, 75, who fled her native Kazakhstan at the age of 17. She is planning to spend £30m redeveloping the property, which already has nine main bedrooms and 16 bathrooms, dwarfing the home of next-door neighbour, steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal (qv). There are plans for a £500,000 helicopter pad that will sink, James Bond-style, into the garden, a 30-seat cinema and even a small river complete with canoe. It's a far cry from the days when she was living in an Iranian refugee camp with not a possession to her name. While there, she met her future husband, a medical student from a wealthy family, and helped him to acquire land. Over the years she has built a property portfolio worth